Chapter 388 - 385 ~ He Died Smiling

Chapter 388: Chapter 385 ~ He Died Smiling

The Karasu leader, Sogen Karasu, followed the trail as he had said he would, and it led him to the place where Kageyama Yoshimura had died.

The trail ended in a clearing in the deep forest, the ground scuffed and stamped where the fight had finished. The Yoshimura leader lay on his back, arms out, eyes open, smiling at the sky. The hilt of a dagger stood up from his gut.

"So he died," one of his men said.

The Karasu leader scanned the surroundings for any sign of an enemy. Nothing moved.

"Take his body," he said. "Give him a proper burial by his clan’s men."

"Why, leader?" one of his men asked. "He was our enemy."

"He was a man worthy of respect," the Karasu leader said. "See how he lies smiling. He died without regrets. Maybe he was protecting something. Look around for anyone hiding. Be careful."

They searched the treeline and found no one. Then they moved to obey. Half of them split off and gave chase to the trail that led west.

Boom.

A biju bomb exploded suddenly in the distance, first with light, then with a low sound that arrived a heartbeat later. The ground jumped under their feet, and a short shockwave cracked the earth. The men flinched and ducked, though the shockwave had already passed.

"What the hell was that?" one of them said.

He looked west, where the sky had gone briefly white. "An ancient beast lives in this territory," he said. "We should not go any further than this. He must have disturbed its sleep, and a sleeping beast woken rudely is the most dangerous kind." He turned to one of his sensors. "Check if that bastard is still alive."

The sensor knelt, put a finger to the ground, and read the vibrations the way other men read writing.

"Son of a bitch is alive," the sensor said.

"Can we catch him?" the Karasu leader asked.

"No." The sensor pressed all his fingertips to the earth. "He is running like his life depends on it. He is too fast. I am barely able to detect him now." He lifted his hand. "He is going out of range, too fast."

The Karasu leader grunted. "Must be the wind-style body-flicker of the Yoshimura clan. We cannot beat him at speed, and there is no point chasing him."

The men looked at the body, then at the trail, then back at their leader.

"Change of plans," he said. "We will bury him here instead of carrying his body to his clan. I don’t know what story that bastard will tell his clan elders or how they will treat us, but let’s give our respect to him here and leave."

A few minutes ago the hidden valley

The nine-tailed fox was staring at the Hoki’s uncle.

Shit.

He tried to back away slowly. A tail crashed down in front of him, cutting off the way out.

He broke and ran, throwing himself aside, barely dodging another tail that slammed into the ground where he had been.

The fox gathered chakra, formed a small biju bomb, and launched it after him like a stone. The man ran and fell into a ditch, and the bomb scraped over the earth above him, tearing a furrow out of the ground, and detonated in the distance.

He performed a few hand seals and activated his escape jutsu. He went low and fast, away from the valley on a zig-zag trail, anticipating another bomb, and ran like the bitch he was. He did not look back. He did not stop.

The fox watched him go without rising, his head still resting on his paws. "That bastard’s lucky to survive it," he said. "With his current speed, he’s moving too fast to hit like you were running earlier."

"It’s our clan’s wind-body-flicker jutsu," Hoki said.

Hoki stood in the mouth of the den, looking after the fleeing man. "Can’t we chase him and kill him?"

"Who are we?" the fox said. "Don’t push your luck, brat. He won’t be coming here again. You can slip out the other way."

"I want to see my father one last time," she said. "I will go there. He is that way."

"He must be dead," the fox said. "You will be too if you’re found. Or he has a subordinate luring and waiting for you right now."

"Then I will wait a few hours," she said, "and go."

Back at the clearing

One of the riders watched the trail to the west, where the explosion had come from. "He’s fled the other way, out of range," he said, "and the beast won’t trouble us here if we don’t go there. We have time to bury him."

The Karasu dug the grave themselves and lowered the Yoshimura leader into it with their own hands, an enemy buried as a warrior, not a carcass. Before the earth was closed, the Karasu leader stood at the head of the grave. "You were my enemy, but you were worthy of respect. I wish you were my friend instead, but the hatred runs thicker than blood in some of us and some of yours. I wish you would find peace now. I will remember you."

They filled the grave. When it was done, he struck the dead man’s own dagger into the tree just behind it; the blade that had killed him returned to its owner. One of his men looked at the dagger and the fine edge of it.

"Why not take this dagger?" one of his men asked.

"I’d be robbing a corpse," the Karasu leader said. "Let’s leave it here."

The man nodded. "Fair enough. I hate grave robbers."

"If their clan asks us civilly," the Karasu leader said, "we will tell them what happened and show them this grave."

He carved the name into the flat stone at the grave’s head, the name the grave belonged to, and beneath it the words that had been true of the dead man’s face when they found him:

He died smiling without regrets, protecting something precious to him.

May you find peace.

Near the nine-tailed fox

The girl had finally talked enough for the fox to tell her to shut up.

"You talk too much," the fox said.

Hoki replied, "My father says there is no use weeping; one should smile and move forward. I am trying really hard... to not cry."

Fox said, "If you keep being such a blabbermouth, no one is going to marry you."

"How can you say that?" she said. "I hope you also find yourself such a girl who is a mouthful."

"We are not beings like you," the fox said. "We do not need a life companion like you do. We are immortal. But if I have to listen to you one more minute, I will kill myself and reincarnate somewhere else."

Hoki blinked. "How does that work?"

"Hey kid, I have told you enough. I am not a blabber like you. I don’t share my secrets."

The fox was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "The way you have described him... he is a paranoid pervert. He will quietly send someone to find any girl matching your description."

Hoki was quiet. "You are right," she said. "Then I will do this."

She took some berries from a nearby plant and started crushing them, mixing in other berries. She was an herbologist and a poison expert, trained at her father’s side, and a wind jutsu user. Her descendant would carry that knowledge to a future ninja village in the west, though none of them knew it yet, not even her.

She made face paint and covered her face in patterns. "If I cover my face like this forever," she said, "then there is no problem."

"But if you do that," the fox said, "no one will marry you. Even if they could tolerate your big mouth."

"Heyy!" Hoki pouted.

"Then I will show my real face only to those I love," she said.

"Suit yourself." The fox watched her a long moment. "Enough time has passed. Leave before that man comes back with more men. He will kill you before you get a chance to tell the truth."

"Yes." She stood, ready to leave. "Thank you for saving me. How can I repay you?"

"Just never mention me to anyone," the fox said. "I don’t want people bothering me."

Hoki bowed and left, looking back only once.

She ran back along the path she had fled and reached her father’s grave.

It was a small mound of earth at the tree line, a flat stone standing at its head with words carved into it, and the ground around it had been stamped flat by men who had worked carefully. She expected to find her father’s body there. She had not expected anyone to have given him a proper burial.

She found the inscription, and it was not her uncle’s handwriting.

He died smiling without regrets, protecting something precious to him.

That was the message on the stone and beneath it: May you find peace.

She read it twice, and the second time her breath came apart, and she finally cried. She cried until her tears were spent, and when they were, she took the dagger from the tree; her father’s own blade, the one that had killed him, lay there by an enemy who had honoured him, and she walked west.

She did not look back again. The paint had dried into a mask she had chosen, and the dagger hung at her hip. The road ran empty ahead of her, out of the mountains and toward the lowlands of the west, the sea of sands she had only ever heard described, and she took the first step, then the next, and she did not stop.

A/N:

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